Shoe Choo Editor

A distraction-free Markdown editor for macOS that lets you focus on writing.

English • 日本語

Features

Seamless Editing

• Live Preview — What you see is what you get. Markdown syntax is rendered inline as you type, just like Typora
• Clean Interface — Minimal UI that stays out of your way so you can focus on your words
• Syntax Highlighting — Subtle, readable highlighting for Markdown elements and code blocks (via Highlightr)

Writing Focus

• Focus Mode — Dims everything except the current paragraph to keep you in the zone
• Typewriter Scrolling — Keeps the active line centered on screen for a comfortable writing posture
• Full Screen — Immersive full-screen writing with no distractions

Markdown

• GFM Support — Headings, bold, italic, strikethrough, lists, task lists, tables, code blocks, blockquotes, horizontal rules, links, and images
• Image Support — Drag & drop or paste images directly into your document (auto-saved to {filename}.assets/)
• Export — Save as HTML or PDF

General

• Native macOS App — Built with Swift 6 and SwiftUI + AppKit (TextKit 2) for a fast, lightweight experience
• File Management — Open, edit, and save .md files with standard macOS file handling (auto-save, Versions)
• Dark Mode — Full support for macOS light and dark appearances with override option
• Sidebar — Quick access to recently opened files
• Preferences — Customizable font, font size, line spacing, and appearance

Requirements

• macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later

Installation

1. Download the latest version from the Releases page
2. Open the .zip or .dmg and move shoechoo.app to your Applications folder
3. Launch Shoe Choo

Note: This app is not notarized. On first launch, macOS will block it. To open it:

Option A (Terminal):

xattr -cr "/Applications/shoechoo.app"

Then launch the app normally.

Option B (System Settings):

1. Try to open shoechoo.app (it will be blocked)
2. Open System Settings > Privacy & Security
3. Scroll down to find the blocked app message and click Open Anyway

Usage

1. Launch Shoe Choo — a new editor window opens
2. Start writing in Markdown — formatting is rendered live as you type
3. ⌘N — Create a new document
4. ⌘O — Open an existing Markdown file
5. ⌘S — Save the current document
6. ⇧⌘F — Toggle focus mode
7. ⇧⌘E — Export to HTML

Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
⌘N	New document
⌘O	Open file
⌘S	Save
⇧⌘S	Save as
⌘B	Bold
⌘I	Italic
⌘K	Insert link
⇧⌘K	Inline code
⌘1–6	Set heading level
⇧⌘F	Toggle focus mode
⇧⌘T	Toggle typewriter scroll
⇧⌘E	Export to HTML
⇧⌥⌘E	Export to PDF
⌃⌘F	Toggle full screen

Roadmap

• macOS app
• iOS / iPadOS app
• iCloud sync across devices

Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Language	Swift 6 (strict concurrency)
UI framework	SwiftUI (window/settings/toolbar) + AppKit NSTextView (text editing)
Markdown parsing	swift-markdown
Testing	Swift Testing (@Test, #expect, @Suite)
PDF generation	WebKit WKWebView.pdf(configuration:)
Persistence	ReferenceFileDocument (SwiftUI document model)
Minimum	macOS 14 Sonoma

Architecture

See ARCHITECTURE.md for full details. Core pipeline:

User Input → Coordinator.textDidChange()
  → EditorViewModel.sourceText update
  → MarkdownParser.parse() → EditorNodeModel.applyParseResult()
  → SyntaxHighlighter.apply() → NSTextStorage attributes
  → Focus Mode dimming (when enabled)

Directory Structure

shoechoo/
├── App/           # ShoechooApp, MarkdownDocument
├── Models/        # EditorNode, EditorNodeModel, EditorViewModel, EditorSettings
├── Parser/        # MarkdownParser (swift-markdown AST → EditorNode)
├── Renderer/      # SyntaxHighlighter (EditorNode → NSTextStorage attributes)
├── Theme/         # EditorTheme, ThemePresets, ThemeRegistry
├── Editor/        # ShoechooTextView (NSTextView), WYSIWYGTextView (NSViewRepresentable)
├── Views/         # EditorView, SidebarView, OutlineView, PreferencesView
└── Services/      # ExportService, FileService, ImageService (all actors)

Theme System

• Colors accessed via EditorTheme protocol — never hardcoded
• ThemeRegistry manages active theme selection
• 7 preset themes: GitHub, Newsprint, Night, Pixyll, Whitey, Solarized Dark/Light

Building from Source

Requires Xcode 16+ and XcodeGen.

git clone https://github.com/yoshidashingo/shoechoo.git
cd shoechoo
brew install xcodegen
xcodegen generate
xcodebuild -project shoechoo.xcodeproj -scheme shoechoo -configuration Release CODE_SIGN_IDENTITY="-" build

Or run xcodegen generate, then open shoechoo.xcodeproj in Xcode and build with ⌘B.

Build & Test Commands

# Build
xcodebuild -scheme shoechoo -destination 'platform=macOS' build

# Test (Swift Testing framework — outputs ◇/✔/✘)
xcodebuild -scheme shoechoo -destination 'platform=macOS' test

Commit Convention

<type>: <description>

Types: feat, fix, refactor, docs, test, chore, perf, ci

Documentation

• Design docs: specs and plans in docs/
• Steering files: work-in-progress docs in .steering/[YYYYMMDD]-[title]/

License

MIT